How Apple And Facebook Helped In Busting World’s Largest Torrent Site Kickass Torrents

Torrent website users and technology fans alike will probably already be aware that one of the largest torrent sites in the world, Kickass Torrents, or KAT as it is affectionately known as, was very recently taken offline by law enforcement after the arrest of its alleged owner, Ukrainian Artem Vaulin.

The founder and continued operator of the site was arrested in Poland yesterday by United States authorities on suspicion of illegally reproducing and distributing more than $1 billion worth of copyrighted content, but now, more information has emerged on the bust, including how Facebook and Apple assisted in the take-down and ultimate arrest of the mastermind behind the 8-year-old site.

Rather than being a simple bust involving knowing exactly who the perpetrator was, and ultimately swooping in to make the arrest, the story of Vaulin’s arrest is a little more complicated, involving a rather complex sting operation as well as the help of Apple Inc. and Facebook, the world’s largest social network.

The process started out with an undercover IRS agent agreeing to host an advertisement on the Kickass Torrents website with an official representative of the company. When that ad ultimately went live, it provided the IRS with enough information to be able to link Kickass Torrents to a Latvian bank account. That account was later found to have received approximately $31 million in deposits between August 2015 and March 2016. It seems that facilitating the download of illegal content via a website is an extremely lucrative enterprise.

After a lot of back-and-forth, the same team of investigators was able to identify a company email address that was not only linked to the website, but also to the website’s official social media channels including Facebook.

Step forward Apple to attempt to complete the picture and actually provide some information that would tie Vaulin’s activities to an Apple ID me.com account.

Records provided by Apple showed that tirm@me.com conducted an iTunes transaction using IP Address 109.86.226.203 on or about July 31, 2015. The same IP Address was used on the same day to login into the KAT Facebook Account. Then, on or about December 9, 2015, tirm@me.com used IP Address 78.108.181.81 to conduct another iTunes transaction. The same IP Address was logged as accessing the KAT Facebook Account on or about December 4, 2015.

Apple provided that information on July 31st, 2015 showing that the same email address was used to purchase something on iTunes, perhaps a movie, legally, with the same IP address being used to to access the aforementioned KAT Facebook page.

The writing was on the wall when it was finally discovered that the same me.com email address was also registered to a Coinbase account in the website founder’s name. An intricate and long drawn out plot that has resulted in the arrest of the alleged operator of the world’s largest torrents site.

For now, the various domains of Kickass Torrents seem alive and well, but our guess is it’s only a matter of time till they meet their end. At this stage however, it’s anyone’s guess really. You can read the entire 48 page criminal complaint filed by the U.S Attorney’s Office here.

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this is the kinda shit our government goes after when Killary gets to a free pass to corruption, lying/perjuring, warmongering, murder (libya, honduras, ukraine), acting provocatively against Russia, blackmail and as Comey said it acting carelessly with national security top secret documents and not only negligent but incompetent. Instead she gets a free pass to start WWIII with the nukes we have that she says her administration will use!

We live in an upside down world! Something has got to change…

Braze

So you voting for chump?

Jeff Miller

Stick your head in the oven and turn on the gas. It’ll help you think more clearly!

@davidmcsf:disqus : the article doesn’t even discusses about politics. And the KAT owner is not even American. He’s Polish. So for Pete’s sake why are you so draconian about the U.S. electoral campaign with which, particularly on Hillary? What does Hillary even have to do with Apple and Facebook? Get your shit together bitch! You’re being crazy as the North Korean leader Kim Jong-un.

Nico Brutaro

It doesn’t matter if they shut down Kick Ass and arrested the owner. Soon he’ll be out and the site up again. If not, another one will take place. It’s a waste of energy with the people’s money. Get another cause like ending hunger and poverty in the world. Bunch of hypocrites.

petecee

*sigh* back to pirate bay I go

baker_tony

Man, you American’s are so messed up when it comes to politics.
Trump has already undone all the substantial respect that Obama has built up over the past few years and Trump’s not even president.
You’re just crazy over there for him to even be considered for running for president, let alone have an actual chance.
And what’s the alternative? A corrupt person?
Sheesh, I wouldn’t care so much if it wasn’t going to affect the rest of the world so much.
I guess if I had a vote, I’d go for corruption over a racist sociopath. Less likely to start WW3 than Trump.

FakeHealer

If you don’t even live in this country, USA, then shut fuck up!!!!!!!!!!

FakeHealer

AMEN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

baker_tony

It’s people like you who aren’t even capable of completely reading something before making their mind up (and commenting in this case) which is why democracy doesn’t work very well.
I.e. Morons fuck everyones shit up.

Ahmet Celal Küpeli

but is just tracker still files on people computers and also cloned KAT databases on internet 🙂

barbara gallagher

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fghw

vera.jacobson

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dsfsd

oplix

Fuck apple and fuck facebook

FakeHealer

When someone starts with “You Americans” I’m pretty sure they’re not from the US. So with that, take your king and queen or dictator and stick it right up your ass!!!!

JEmlay

Seeing as how Obama has single handedly divided the USA….you’re full of shit.

JEmlay

No, no one is voting for you.

JEmlay

Fuck you too.

yamdigger

Sure he’ll be out again…if they give him bail in Poland and he hightails it Russia where they can’t touch him. But once he’s on the plane to America, thats it. He’s done.

oplix

So clever

JEmlay

Just as clever as yours. Seriously did you even think before posting?

Allen Santee Summers

He hasn’t divided the country, he’s just let the light shine on the problems that already existed here.

Allen Santee Summers

You humans are so insignificant.

jdwii

Yeah you can stop that crap right now, America has a BIG influence on the rest of the world and i live in Michigan with this crappy freaking governor that does nothing to help anyone but give him and his people raises.

Back to the subject America pushes countries that are not capitalist greedy based systems to war. Capitalism is the main cause to why income inequality is so horrible here.

Why Americans are working more for less in the last 35 years. America lets companies flee to overseas so they can pay China workers barely anything and then sell it back to us free trade.

America is not that great so do not even for a second pretend it is the people here are so stuck in their ways, imo Americans as i see it have the WORST culture. RUDE, bigoted describes half of this country at the very least.

You have the audacity to tell someone if you are not an American you have nothing to say what kind of uneducated person can you be to say something like that? Boggles my mind seriously does.

USA has probably the biggest influence on the rest of the world when 9/11 happen ALL markets crashed. Hell even when the UK pulled out of the EU it affected us a little for a while so i have no idea why you would say something like that unless you simply know nothing about the subject then it makes me wonder why are you even expressing such a strong opinion on the matter?